Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 13] Ch.7 Loyal Dogs

[Victor]

How long has it been?

Since I decided to start following Sebas come what may.

A few years, I think.

I remember that day so clearly.

The day I almost lost my Sister, the most precious existence in my life.

For so long we knew nothing of human decency, as escaped experiments in an abandoned dwarven mine. We survived in the walls of a research rats like rats. I never appreciated the value of life since so many test subjects can and went so fast. When Sebas came and saved everyone it was truly fascinating to see someone who both valued lives and extinguished them.

We associated with him since we were intrigued. And then when we trying to escape tragedy struck.

I remember the cave in and how dark and lonely it was. I remember Sebas and Lilith there making sure that everyone was safe and noticing that Victoria was no longer there.

I remember the feeling of being launched away by Victoria's amazing strength and then looking back and only seeing rubble. I couldn't move. I couldn't process that she was no longer there. I couldn't fathom that she wouldn't be by my side anymore

It was the first time I had experienced loss. The first time I knew that I had a bond with my sister that would leave an undeniable hole in me if she were removed.

Then I watched as Sebas sent off the crowd with a map and then proceeded to start digging. First with magic and then with his bare hands as he began shifting larger pieces of rock out of the way.

He coughed up blood and kept digging. After being shaken out of my stupor by Lilith I helped dig. I remember whenever our hands would start bleeding, Liz would pull us aside, dress, heal our wounds and replace the wrapping on our hands so we could keep digging. I realized in those moments just what kind of man Sebas was, just what kind of pain he was willing to endure. Especially, after killing some of the absolutely overpowered experiments that were both guard dogs against the monsters of the mines and too dangerous to let out of the labs.

I was digging to save my sister my only person in this cold cruel world. I would do anything I would kill myself if that's what it meant to succeed. If that's what it meant to see her again. And even in that desperation Sebas was right there, boulder for boulder. Even when we found out the tunnel beneath the one we were in had collapsed and we started digging down at no point did he say we should give up hope.

It was this day I learned my own willpower and what I was willing to do even when all hope was lost.

Then that moment when we saw light peeking out from between bits of rubble.

When I finally heard her voice calling me an idiot by artificial candlelight, I couldn't help myself as I cried.

Even now when I look over at Sebas in this dark basement with the has-been Conscript king named T'erk I can't wrap my head around what he is thinking. Just the other day I watched as he ripped T'erk's heart from his chest with no ceremony and replaced it with a crystal dungeon core shaped like a heart. Those two were fawning over a tiny fairy child the size of a bug with the glowing rainbow wings of a butterfly.

She had been the result of T'erk's choice, he fostered the tiny bulb and it had grown into a flower and when that flower sprouted the small fairy child emerged from the flower petals. Sebas had confessed that he had lied about the bulb being special and used T'erk in an attempt to summon an alternate form of demon beast. He spent a long time talking to T'erk about his thesis and Crowned T'erk the new Fairy king and granted him a new title.

Handsome Oberon Terk.

Telling Terk that Oberon meant king of the Fairies. A new word for his new kingship which didn't have its own meaning in the current translation of Demon beast culture yet. And Handsome a title granted by Sebas as a declaration of his intervention with T'erk's very survival and transformation into something new and hopefully greater.

Sebas could somehow get away with body modification, racial augmentation, and dungeon creation with a few words. Where others were hunted down and tried as criminals against society for even doing one of those things.

All because he called that fallen king "Handsome" and creating a new word for king for him.

Sebas did however stress that he was no longer a demon beast, a conscript, nor a familiar. He was a living dungeon. The Oberon dungeon of the Oberon Fairies that would serve T'erk who in turn would serve Sebas.

Sebas then requested the Handsome Oberon Terk to swear allegiance to him. As a king and retainer. A clear choice of service rather than servitude.

Terk had laughed at him, telling him that he should have saved all the title granting until after Terk agreed to serve him. But to both my surprise (and Daylen's) T'erk bowed his head and bent the new swearing on his title to serve Sebas as his loyal vassal.

I could see it in his eyes though. That little fairy had changed him. The way a man turns into a father when his first child is born. He would do anything for her, and he knew how dangerous his position was, he could only rely on Sebas and his mysterious connections to survive.

I sense a sort of kinship with him there. I had made the same commitment to Sebas in my heart because I knew I had to honor how he had saved not only my sister by my sorry ass as well. Although mine was a silent vow of loyalty like a stray following Sebas home in place of T'erk's more noble vocal declaration.

Of course, it all makes sense when you realize that the great Oberon Terk named his first Fairy daughter Winifred. Blessed Reconciliation, Joy and peace.

I might make fun of him for it. But Sebas had done something similar for me when he gave me my sister back. So I'll just tease T'erk later about his fatherly and motherly doting.

Since at the end of the day I'd Follow Sebas to the ends of the world and beyond. Every moment I had with my sister I'd pay with my life and loyalty a hundred times over.

Terks eyes are the same as mine. Glowing with new life.

Meanwhile, Sebas was having me do hard labor as I stoked the fires for a kiln with new pots for Terk to grow a garden of flowers.

But it was worth it.

And I once again cursed Sebas with my mouth and sang his praises in my heart when my sister came down the stairs to Daylen's basement dungeon workshop with a batch of fresh cookies and sweets to spoil Winifred. Sweets that I never got to test due to being punished for stealing a box of Sebas's cross quartz and playing that prank on him and Jules so they could reconcile finally.

Sebas can be such a petty Bitch sometimes.